Thursday, June 23, 2005

Common Ground....Perhaps...

"But it's love. Stop rationalizing""Nothing can exist that is not rational.""Love is....you can never explain it with logic.""I just did, didn't I?""Yeah....but I don't want to believe that....you make it sound so cold and logical..."

And that's the truth. We don't WANT to believe it. The truth is that love does not exist, not in the sense that the movies and books and fairytales teach us as children. It's a fairytale concept, in that it is unreal. A myth. I read a post by Egghead that "intuition" is something "illogical" and is something not given enough credence. My view is simple. There is no such thing as "intuition" in the way we think of it.

Intuition is just a series of mental calculations that happens without our knowing it. We reach a logical conclusion based on probabilities that our brains compute, leading us to certain answers. It happens without our even realizing that it happened. And that's why we just tag it as "intuition", as something built-in, something that's "supernatural" almost..... It's the same with "love".

Most people just like to believe in the concept of love....that's all. It is just an emotion like any other. Let's take a small example.

"Do you love your parents?"Nine out of ten at least, would answer yes, for at least one parent."Did you choose your parents?"No....this, I am sure holds true for everyone ;-)"So, what made you love them?

Answer: Rationality. Logic. And reason. Confronted with a situation that did not give you a choice, your brain made a decision. And that decided your emotions....together with the conditioning you were given that "you should love your parents." So where does that leave us? It essentially leaves us with the cold fact, that "love" is nothing more or less than a commonplace and weak (in the commonplace, everyday relationships) emotion that is easy to explain in terms of cold rationality.

Weak? Yep. Ever seen good friendships break over the trivialities that affect relationships? I think not.... For all the crap that people give about, "I'd do anything for him/her", the fact remains that any relationship based on things other than a deep friendship is more fragile than even a bone china cup...it is a farcical entity created out of the imaginations of two people who dream up visions of what the other is like....only to have them shattered, sooner or later.

Now, I hear people saying "you can't mention the thingy about parents and extrapolate." Fair enough. The fact is that even in the conventional (if I may say so) "relationship", if it is "real", the thing that makes it happen is that calculation that tells you that your chances of being happy with someone are higher with one person than with others. And that is why, several times, people are torn between two choices at certain moments. While the asinine fairytale concept will tell you that you can only love once, that's asinine (as I mentioned) and total bullcrap!!!! Sadly though, most people don't have a solid foundation or anything. They go with "their heart", which in common parlance can be substituted with "their arse".

Forget loving only once, you can love two people at the same time too!!! The degree may differ, but you can. I have seen it happen, as I am sure, have many of you...."Love" therefore is essentially a stupid concept peddled by movies, fairytales and card-shops, to dupe people into believing in it. The cycle becomes complete, when these people, after convincing themselves, convince others, who continue the cycle, aided all along by the vendors mentioned above....

"Why would you want to leave a path that has brought you happiness in the past?" "Because of the realization that with it, it could bring so much grief and leave me open to so much pain." "Would you think the same if it hadn't happened?" "It did happen so the question is pointless." "What if it could happen again?" "That's what I am afraid of...."

Life, somehow, is never as unidimensional as we like to believe it is. There is always, in the immortal words of Star Wars, "the Dark Side". A dark side, which we conveniently ignore most of the time. Sometimes though, we are also guilty of focussing only on the dark side. I have seldom seen a person who is able to take a view of the two jointly and make a call based on....the common ground, for lack of a better term.

19 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Attaboy!

I really don't believe in intuition. It just fits way to easily with what we want to believe.

And well 'love' is not a stupid concept....'romantic love' or 'falling in love' is a stupid concept. The way I see it if 'falling in love' is actually what people say it is, then we should 'fall in love' with people regardless of gender. Hehehe :) For people always 'fall in love' with people they are attracted to. So the bottom line is it's all about sex right? I mean, show me a couple 'truly in love' who haven't been upto any hanky-panky and I'll re-think.

Loving two people at the same time? Uhmmm...Ashley is in love with both Scarlett and Melanie in Gone With the Wind and he goes through turmoil coz of that. So it's higly un-recommended :))

Well, IMHO people get into relationships either when they are bored of themselves or bored of life or just want someone to lean on to. And they usually get into relationships with people who make them feel good about themselves. When Jerry Maguire said 'You complete me', women all over the world swooned. BS!!! I mean if you are not a complete person yourself, I don't even wanna know you, forget 'fall in love'(read sleep) with you!!

Love is when the other person's happiness means more to you than your own and when you'll continue loving the other person no matter what he/she does. ONLY parents can love so unconditionally. Children DON'T love their parents unconditionally but parents love children unconditionally. Of course, I'm talking about normal families and not those whacko ones where fathers go about raping kids. And you'll never find such love between couples! No way!

God told Adam and Eve to "be fruitful and multiply." But we can't just go ahead and do this like animals. So people invented this whole thing about love.

Oh yeah Tell me abt "love" and "rationlization" and the torment when one goes thro when one actually tries to "rationalize" the love!;) Will post abt it soon....and btw the Richard Dawkins has an interesting take on the reason for the "unconditional" filial love...try to get hold of his book "The Selfish Gene"....and that was spot on "intuition"...considering the fact that most of our knowledge is empirical in nature the idea of intuition doesnt make sense. It is too convenient and tries to encompass quite a lot of things which logically is outside its domain.

A M A Z I N G!!!just the word to describe this post...when u post that stuff abt girls and their logic...thats okay but man oh man this was truly awesome...IMHO your best work till date...keep them coming...and the definition of intuition...WOW!!!..i am putting this on my blog as one of my fav quotes..."Intuition is just a series of mental calculations that happens without our knowing it. We reach a logical conclusion based on probabilities that our brains compute, leading us to certain answers."

Love is truly a hypothetical concept invented by those who need a term to describe their feelings for someone they r attracted to more than they are to others(talk abt differential treatment).i agree with susie taht love can be for someone belonging to the same sex and to more tahn one person at teh same time...but people refuse to believe this only coz of those hallowed societal norms.maybe love implies caring for someone else's happiness over ur own which again seeems to me a utopian concept...heres hoping that someday i can explain this puzzle to myself(which can only happen if i fall in "love" or realise that i could never fall in love and i dont see teh chances of either of tehse happening in the near future)...

One small matter is causing me some discomfort....were intutive reasoning a series of logical steps, why do different people get different answers when they rely on gut feel?? Logic in any form should yield the same answer, irrespective of who applies it. 1+2=3, no matter who does the calculation.....

You may claim that some brains are better at calculating probabilities - but that is precisely my point....logic either yields the right answer or claims that the data is insufficient - it never gives WRONG answers....that is why i say that we are imperfect - which is really a good thing - for if we were perfect, we would never really have enough data to do even commonplace tasks....we could never work with little information....

What I really mean by gut feel is the ability to get those probabilities you speak of.....once you have the probabilities, it is a simple matter of calculation - 'Intuition is just a series of mental calculations that happens without our knowing it. We reach a logical conclusion based on probabilities that our brains compute, leading us to certain answers' - which you have mentioned...

How do you get the probabilities? Why do two people seeing the same events/data form different probabilities in their heads?? Why are some people better AT GENERATING THE PROBABILITIES?? The differentiating factor is the gut feel...The 'generating probabilties' part has more to with intuition than its usage (the logical steps which must follow later, and which you write of in your post).

Deepa: Unfortunately, am not able to "take" things....feel the need for rationality....weird perhaps, but true...

Abhinav: Very true....and that's why I believe that "love" is the most selfish of all emotions.

Naveen: Thanks. And yes, it's all about "societal norms" as you put it....more bluntly, the trash we're fed through our formative years...

Swaps: Thanks...and thanks for dropping by...

Egghead: Why do people get different answers in exams? The point about imperfection is well taken, but that does not bely the fact that "intuition" is balderdash. Life and it's decisions are encompass millions of parameters. Including or excluding a parameter will lead you to a different result....simple.....

Logical or not I dont know....but this is my observation --- people talk negatively bout love only after they've got hurt !!

Maybe it aint surprising, afterall how would you know it tastes bitter until you actually taste it.

But what is absurd dat tis these same people who consider love to be the most amazing, undescribable phenomenon when they are IN love with someone. And the minute they are out of it....they blame it on their irrational flow of emotions.

I guess i too believe the same way...never experienced the word called Love..it has always been affection, care and respect for me..maximum is cursh..which is a one sided affair..

Well yes i firmly believe that one can love 2-3 ppl at the same time and i dont find it wrong..there is nothing wrong in it...

If i like/love someone today and after a year another person comes in my life then it doesnt mean that i shld stop loving the first one...having a relationship is different than loving someone.

This love is nothing but the inquisitvieness created in us by ourself and by others...most of the ppl claim they love someone coz thats faishon..thats what is trend in movies. Love is nothing but a blend of all emotions

but i really need to disagree with u on this topic! well, u might hv known i'd disagree! pls dont say love doesnt exist! it does! it most definitely does! just that not everyone on the planet is able to experience its magic! like that song goes, 'har kisiko nahin milta yahan pyaar zindagi mein...'!

Nish --> "But what is absurd dat tis these same people who consider love to be the most amazing, undescribable phenomenon when they are IN love with someone. And the minute they are out of it....they blame it on their irrational flow of emotions"

We've all seen the Matrix..."Have you ever had a dream that you thought was real? If you could never wake up from the dream, how could you ever distinguish between the dream and reality?" - If you never fall out of love (come out of the Matrix), how will you ever realise it was an irrational flow of emotions?? (as u put it...not my views...)

So do I want to fall in love??I shall quote from the Matrix again - "Ignorance is bliss!!"

OK. Here we go...I stand by my views. Vidhi, I have not said that "love" per se does not exist. I reiterate, love does, but not the fairytale love people want to believe in so much....or as a female friend told me a couple of days back, "romantic love, as depicted everywhere, is a myth". Bang on, in my modest opinion....

Someone hinted that perhaps I had a bad experience. On the contrary, I had the most enriching, satisfying and fulfilling relationship imaginable. But neither of us ever for a moment believed in the trashy "love" the movies and fairytales show. Based purely on logic and cold hard common sense....those are the only things that last....

Ships, you missed out one very important aspect.....not just whatever "good" left. It's EVERYTHING!!! Noone is perfect, no relationship is perfect and Heaven is a myth, so there can't be "matches made in Heaven". That's all just pure bullcrap....

Zarine: Mate, bang on. As usual. The end does not fit it. It's not meant to....that was a conversation that was playing on my mind at the time I wrote the post....it's entirely unrelated to the rest of the post.....

Finally, I'll sum it all up with something my Mom told me when I was about 16 and totally impressionable. It is a piece of advice that I believe in completely, from logic and from experience..."If you ever have a choice between a girl who's your best friend and a woman who sweeps you off your feet, go for the former......because that is what will last..." And trust me, I have never heard a wiser word spoken on this topic.....that's it from me :-).